I would submit a slightly different way of looking at all this.
"Real" vs. "fake" is really not very productive...
In reality it is about who made it with their own hands and whose name is on the bike. The closer we get to having those two elements being the same, i.e., the frame was actually built by the person whose name is on the decal, the more positive we feel about the bike.
Faliero Masi was "The Man" who built for the stars and his touch has the priority in valuation. The more removed he became in the process, the less value aficionados would logically have for the product. Is is a matter of degree, not black or white. And by all reports, Faliero stopped actually building frames way back in the late 1960s... A bike made by his number one disciple (Mario Confente) or his son (Milano Masi!) still has an aura but it is not quite the same. A bike made by a workshop contracted out with no input from Faliero at all or in Taiwan/China is also hard to embrace as being very much related to the Maestro's original vision...
If we choose to and if that's where our values lie, we also can differentiate between the actual craft and skill and style brought to particular makes. I do agree with Mike Kone's original assessment that many California Masis have better workmanship and paint than the Italian versions from the same period.. (models Criterium vs Prestige.) But does that make them more "real"? It actually is irrelevant unless that part of Faliero's craft/art is what you are attracted to in the first place.
A Jack Denny made Hetchins is a lot more interesting to me than a Bob Jackson made Hetchins.... than a new David Miller made Hetchins, but that doesn't mean they are not cool bikes.
So, the further away a make comes from it's original state, that which its fame is initially derived, the less value it has as a historic link. But that doesn't mean it cannot have value unto itself.
Dale Brown
Greensboro, North Carolina